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32The Other Within: Ethics, Politics, and the Body in Simone de Beauvoir (review)Journal of Speculative Philosophy 20 (3): 248-250. 2006.
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38Seven Principles for Better Practical EthicsTeaching Philosophy 19 (4): 337-355. 1996.This paper attends to the question of how to effectively teach ethics in universities. The author challenges the accepted skepticism amongst other disciplines that philosophers are no longer equipped to teach ethics courses to accommodate the moral demands of the contemporary world. Philosophers are believed to merely focus on abstract issues concerning moral attitudes and behavior. Currently, ethics courses in universities have replaced abstract moral issues of moral theory with concrete issues…Read more
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27Resurrecting Language through Social CriticismSocial Philosophy Today 17 203-216. 2001.Social criticism can take on many forms ranging from theoretical exposition to non-violent protests. This paper considers literary art as a form of social criticism and uses Morrison's novel Paradise as the exemplary case to show that the confrontation of unjust ideas through social criticism is essential in building non-oppressive relations open to diversity. In this sense, social criticism is a paradigm of communication that, although often entailing conflict, ultimately aims at reconciliation…Read more
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M. Kelly , "Hermeneutics and critical theory in ethics and politics" (review)Journal of Value Inquiry 28 (3): 489. 1994.
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48Feminist Political SolidarityIn Lisa Tessman (ed.), Feminist Ethics and Social and Political Philosophy: Theorizing the Non-Ideal, Springer. pp. 205--220. 2009.This article examines some of the conceptual history of collective political action within feminist movements beginning with sisterhood and moving to feminist political solidarity. I argue that feminist political solidarity is built on a commitment by individuals to form a unity in opposition to injustice or oppression. Three moral relations emerge from this understanding of feminist political solidarity: the relation to the cause, the relation among members of the solidary group, and the rela…Read more
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43The Duty of SolidarityPhilosophy in the Contemporary World 4 (3): 24-33. 1997.Catholic Social Teaching of late has a lot more in common with feminist moral theory than might be evident at first glance. After a brief explanation of Catholic Social Teaching’s duty of solidarity, and a look at some of the feminist critiques of this solidarity, I point out some of the significant similarities between feminist ethics and the duty of solidarity. The last section focuses on community and care, the epistemological role of experience and the world view of the other, the centrality…Read more
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20Sympathy and Solidarity and Other Essays (review)Journal of Speculative Philosophy 18 (4): 336-338. 2004.
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134Political solidarity and violent resistanceJournal of Social Philosophy 38 (1). 2007.This article examines the particular moral obligations of solidarity focusing on the solidary commitment against injustice or oppression. I argue that political solidarity entails three relationships—to other participants in action, to a cause or goal, and to those outside the unity of political solidarity. These relationships inform certain obligations. Activism is one of those obligations and I argue that violent activism is incompatible with the other relations and duties of solidarity. Ac…Read more
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25Innocence and VulnerabilitySocial Philosophy Today 28 167-176. 2012.In Stephen Nathanson’s important new book, he offers and defends a definition of terrorism that relies on a conception of innocence that blends both moral innocence and status innocence. I argue that this understanding of innocence needs to be modified in two ways. First, status innocence ought to incorporate the notion of opposition. It is not just in becoming a soldier that one sacrifices status innocence; it is in the context of war or opposition. Second, I argue that moral innocence understo…Read more
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18Engaged RespectSocial Philosophy Today 31 151-160. 2015.In this tribute to Jean Harvey, I take up a project that she left unfinished: the articulation of an account of engaged respect. Building on her discussion of facets of the moral community—namely self-respect, the irreducibly individual nature of oppression and interactional justice, education and empathetic understanding, and moral solidarity—I suggest we can discern a Harveyian conception of engaged respect. Harvey acknowledges the fallibility of human beings, including well-meaning moral ac…Read more
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9Women and WhiskeySocial Philosophy Today 30 147-159. 2014.The pairing of “whiskey” and “women” may at times be seen as an instance of what I call conspiratorial vices. Conspiratorial vices, I argue, are phenomena that, when working together, inform each other in a way that sets their content. Taken individually, the elements of the conspiracy are, at best, ambiguous with regard to their moral status. The conjoining of the concepts yields the status as “vice” and points to something deemed a threat to the social fabric. Through the use of two cases, I e…Read more
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19A Feminist Look at Ferdinand Schoeman’s Privacy and Social FreedomSocial Philosophy Today 12 267-275. 1996.
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102Seeking SolidarityPhilosophy Compass 10 (10): 725-735. 2015.Using relations of solidarity in global contexts, this article explores some of the debates about what constitutes solidarity. Three primary forms of solidarity are discussed, with particular attention to the different nature of the solidaristic relations and their moral obligations
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13Resurrecting Language through Social CriticismSocial Philosophy Today 17 203-216. 2001.Social criticism can take on many forms ranging from theoretical exposition to non-violent protests. This paper considers literary art as a form of social criticism and uses Morrison's novel Paradise as the exemplary case to show that the confrontation of unjust ideas through social criticism is essential in building non-oppressive relations open to diversity. In this sense, social criticism is a paradigm of communication that, although often entailing conflict, ultimately aims at reconciliation…Read more
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38March MadnessTeaching Philosophy 31 (2): 141-150. 2008.What is at stake when students sell the highly sought-after basketball tickets they receive for free through a university’s lottery system? This article discusses a case in applied ethics taken from the experience of college students and extrapolates from that to the distribution of other scarce resources using lotteries. By examining an event relevant to the actual experience of students, we challenge them to see how normative moral theory may be used and what values are central to moral decisi…Read more
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G. Ezorsky, "Racism and justice: The case for affirmative action" (review)Journal of Value Inquiry 29 (1): 153-155. 1995.
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1Persons transformed by political solidarityAppraisal 8. 2010.The unity with others in collective action to achieve a particular goal, known as political solidarity, transforms the individual. I examine the dual nature of that personal transformation — the motivational transformation and the normative transformation — and offer a study of the relation between political solidarity and empathy. While empathy may be part of the normative transformation, I argue that it is not a necessary element of the motivational transformation. I conclude with a discussion…Read more
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105Adoption, ART, and a re-conception of the maternal body: Toward embodied maternityHypatia 21 (1): 54-73. 2006.: We criticize a view of maternity that equates the natural with the genetic and biological and show how such a practice overdetermines the maternal body and the maternal experience for women who are mothers through adoption and ART (Assisted Reproductive Technologies). As an alternative, we propose a new framework designed to rethink maternal bodies through the lens of feminist embodiment. Feminist embodied maternity, as we call it, stresses the particularity of experience through subjective em…Read more
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14Innocence and VulnerabilitySocial Philosophy Today 28 167-176. 2012.In Stephen Nathanson’s important new book, he offers and defends a definition of terrorism that relies on a conception of innocence that blends both moral innocence and status innocence. I argue that this understanding of innocence needs to be modified in two ways. First, status innocence ought to incorporate the notion of opposition. It is not just in becoming a soldier that one sacrifices status innocence; it is in the context of war or opposition. Second, I argue that moral innocence understo…Read more
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24Women and Whiskey: Conspiratorial VicesSocial Philosophy Today 30 147-159. 2014.The pairing of “whiskey” and “women” may at times be seen as an instance of what I call conspiratorial vices. Conspiratorial vices, I argue, are phenomena that, when working together, inform each other in a way that sets their content. Taken individually, the elements of the conspiracy are, at best, ambiguous with regard to their moral status. The conjoining of the concepts yields the status as “vice” and points to something deemed a threat to the social fabric. Through the use of two cases, I e…Read more
Villanova, Pennsylvania, United States of America
Areas of Interest
Social and Political Philosophy |
Philosophy of Gender, Race, and Sexuality |